


To Kill the King

by Allothi



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Minor Character(s), POV Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-18
Updated: 2009-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allothi/pseuds/Allothi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The start's like a bad joke.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	To Kill the King

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in the hiatus between seasons one and two. I'm not sure if it's directly contradicted by anything in season two, but it's definitely not informed by it. It also probably won't make much sense if you haven't seen episode 1x12, _To Kill the King_.
> 
> Huge, huge thanks to Waldorph and Stealingpennies for beta reading.

The start's like a bad joke. _Sorcerer walks into a pub_. Barric does, into the Mermaid's Toes.

It's his local, in fact. Nice enough little place. The ale's decent, not posh, but not piss either. They run promotions twice in every lunar cycle: buy one, get one half price. Or free, if you're an attractive lady.

The stranger at the bar is unfortunately not an attractive lady. A guy, a bit pinched-looking, mousey hair. Looks pretty normal, right up to the point where he's not.

It goes like: Barric comes up. There's not much of anyone else about this early in the evening, no one he knows that well, so he's straight up to the counter. Ector the barman just setting down the stranger's pint. Coins change hands. Ector off to get change. Stranger turns to Barric and catches him full in the eyes, very direct. Mutters something. And Barric just catches the like-autonomous movement, just about a centimetre, of the stranger's full pint glass into his open, long-fingered, barely-lined hand.

The guy looks again at Barric and raises his eyebrows, as if to say, _Yeah, I did that. Want to make anything of it?_

_Fucking hell, you crazy, idiot bastard_ is mainly what Barric wants to make of it. _Shit, fucking hell_. He's panicking, trying his best not to, he hopes to hell no one's noticed -- does his best not to look all over the place to check like the most suspicious, suspectable fuck that ever got suspected. Almost jumps out of his skin when Ector's back and asking if Barric wants his usual.

"My what?"

"Your usual. To drink," Ector explains.

"Uh, yeah. Usual. Usual'd be good."

Crazy stranger leans his back against the bar. Sips his pint.

"Live here?" he says. Voice a bit of a scratchy tenor. Accent'd be maybe Elmet or Rheged. Maybe Ebrauc.

"Yeah," Barric says. "Ten years."

A nod. "Nice enough place."

The guy hangs around and watches while Barric gets his drink and pays Ector, then follows as Barric heads for an empty table.

"Oi," says Barric.

"Yes, where are my manners?" says crazy stranger. "I'm Tauren. What's your name?"

"I'm Barric," Barric concedes. He pulls out a chair for himself. Sits down. Tauren leans over the table towards him.

"I'm a sorcerer." Spoken fairly low -- thankfully.

Barric mutters: "Your little trick back there gave you away a bit with that."

"I expect you're more careful about these things," Tauren says, lower -- _fucking thankfully_ \-- still.

Just Barric's luck to run into the type who can tell the moment they look at you.

~

They drink. Barric drinks pretty quickly. The place is slowly filling, but Ector seems to find the time to bring him over a second pint. The lad hovers for a second or two, picks up Barric's empty glass, looks consideringly at Tauren's three-quarters full one. Starts chattering a bit -- it's a relief. Barric has no idea what to say to Tauren, and Tauren is apparently taking his time about saying whatever it is he's got to say to Barric.

"Where're you from?" Ector asks Tauren.

"Here and there. I move around quite a bit."

"Like a merchant?"

"Yeah, a bit like that." Tauren takes a drink of his pint, ostentatiously taking his time about it.

Ector looks unembarrassed. He gives up on Tauren, though, and asks Barric after his field-strip. Barric makes noncommital noises about turnips. Ector promises he'll be sending the whole strip good thoughts. The someone shouts for him -- customers waiting -- and he's hurrying off. Left back alone with Tauren, Barric watches Ector go regretfully.

"Bit of an odd one, our Ector," Barric says.

"Yes," Tauren agrees. "I can see."

They resume their awkward silence. Or -- Barric finds it awkward. What Tauren's feeling he won't venture. Man's got a bit of a predatory air about him.

"Um," Barric says. "So. Been, uh, sorcering long?" It's something to say. Course, it's something you're born with, they say, but people don't always discover their talents all at once. "Since you were a kid, maybe, or--"

"Yes," says Tauren.

"Oh," says Barric. "That's, um. Yeah, me too."

"Hi!" says a voice to one side of them.

~

The voice belongs to a guy Tauren seems to have been expecting, big guy, same accent as Tauren's, looks like he's been in a fight with the landscape.

"Did you find it?" says Tauren. "Any problems?"

"It's fine, I've got it," says the man.

"_Good._" And Tauren lights up a bit -- though it's not entirely a cheery sight.

The man takes a seat, and steals Barric's pint. Takes a long swig.

"Thirsty," he says. "Long day. I'm Rion. I'll buy you another one." He removes his big leather gloves and sticks out a big, intimidating hand, and Barric, trepidatory, sticks out his own to meet it.

~

The 'it' that Rion's found is a magic stone. Which, he and Tauren claim, with a little work, will turn base metal into gold. Barric would laugh, if they didn't look so intense about the thing. He almost does when he gets a hold of the rest of their bloody plan, which they whisper in bits and scraps over their drinks.

"So, you see. Bribes, coup, magic-tolerant government." Rion grins, like it all makes sense. "And eventually: democracy!"

_Madness_. Though it takes Barric a fair number of pints before he'll say so.

"No, see--" Rion waves his hand unsteadily, shaking loose some smallish twigs from his sleeve. "--_you're_ the mad one. Just staying here, waiting. Doing nothing."

"Complacent," Tauren agrees, enunciating. Far less drunk, having drunk far less. "_Comfortable_."

Barric stares long and thoughtfully at the table. "But woss' wrong with that?"

"Everything," says Tauren -- as if his saying so is enough. But Barric likes comfort, and so it isn't.

"Why?" he says.

"Because!" Rion says. He pauses a moment, wrinkles his nose. "Your king and _Uther_." He says the word 'Uther' in tones to suggest _nasty warty evil toad_. "Them lot signed a peace pact last year. Getting chummy. Verrrrry chummy. Chummier every day."

Tauren adds, quietly, "There are things King Uther expects from his allies. He has this little obsession, a _dislike_, a little idiosyncrasy. You may have heard of it."

"Oh," Barric decides to say. Because yeah, he's heard of it. He drinks some more. It's the best response he can think of.

~

Barric doesn't think much at all the next morning. The headache has something to do with it. Just puts on the mail and clothes Tauren gives him, packs up some provisions. Sheathes, unsheathes, sheathes, unsheathes -- sheathes his sword.

"Know how to use it?" says Tauren.

"No."

"Just try to cut your enemies, not yourself."

~

When the treaty was declared with Camelot, Barric didn't think that much to worry. What could he have done, if he had? Up and left, perhaps, but the new guy's always most suspicious of all, and nowhere's really a good place to be a sorcerer. And he's -- he was -- settled where he was, had things sorted. Not many problems. Why think about change? But the idea was still there, hanging about his head, ready to be tipped over.

He doesn't need to get caught up in all this. But he feels caught. He's drawn into moving forwards. It's the stone, too, it has a big kind of power -- even Barric could feel it, across the table, could have reached out and touched it -- and power's something you can believe in. Power for sorcerers, even, power instead of fear. Amazing, this thought almost nearing on reality. That they could make a change for themselves.

In Lundein, there's not many people who know what Barric is. Just about no one, really. The few who know a little, they might have forgotten.

Magic's always been legal here. But there are reasons you don't see people doing flashy stuff, even non-flashy, letting on, like Tauren last night. First, actually, it's difficult. Very difficult, without a whole load of power, to do anything much not involving ages of chanting or brewing or symbols all over your bedroom.

Second, legality or no technical legality, there's plenty of people won't trust a sorcerer. And sorcerers generally won't trust people. Barric lived in Camelot as a child, had relatives who stayed when he left. Some kinds of paranoia, once you've learnt them, you don't drop.

He's had a normal life here. Quiet. Untroubled. He could stay, easily. Grow his crops, go to market. The Mermaid's Toes, twice a week. Take advantage of the promotions. Get drunk. Even if laws against magic do come, he might be all right. With some luck. Good sense. Circumspection. Tighten up that story about his background. Persuade those one or two guys who know better to keep quiet for him. They might. They have this far, at least. He knows in Camelot they execute for concealing that kind of information, but that's only an issue if anyone finds out, and finds out that anyone else had _previously_ found out and been less sharing of their findings.

Barric wonders if it's the years of paranoia, the day-to-day tense buildup, somewhere back beyond emotion, around the bones at the base of his skull -- something like that that's driving him now. Or fear? Or a very old grudge. It could be all of those things.

As the three of them are just about to go, Ector walks into Barric's cottage, eyes glowing golden, full of light, he says: "I overheard, last night. I want to join you."

Fucking hell. It could even be hope.

~

They cross the border. Find a family to stay with. Pose as travelling soldiers -- not at all, in any way magical, enemies of magic in fact -- on their way to Dyfneint. Pay a lot of silver pieces. Ector robbed the pub in a fit of youthful, ruthless idealism, so they've got the money.

The family accept, but look terrified. Well they might.

They sleep, Ector, Barric, Rion, Tauren, head to feet to head to feet, on the floor, wrapped in thin blankets. In the morning, Barric wakes second, after Tauren -- who's already gone, doing who knows what -- and sees someone definitely female next to him in Ector's place.

The lady wakes, blinks, and turns back into Ector.

"Oh," says Barric.

Ector shrugs. "It's easier to get by this way," she -- he -- she (maybe?) says.

Rion grumbles, turns about, and opens his eyes. Yawns and stretches.

"Breakfast," he (Barric bloody well hopes) announces.

~

After breakfast, they find Tauren out in the fields with the cattle. He's sat on a fence, looks wistful, in a sharp-edged sort of way.

"My dad kept cows," Tauren says.

Rion scratches the back of his neck. Barric doesn't think about his dad, who made potions.

"You could, too," says Ector.

Tauren nods, looking serious about the thing. "One day."

Not an intuitive thought. Tauren doesn't quite look the cattleherd type. Frankly, he looks the _fucking weird_ type, but, particularly with that stone, Barric's still not quite about to tell him.

"But," Tauren reaches inside his pocket, takes out the pouch with the stone in, takes out the stone, smiles as it warms to a glow. "I knew where this was. And I know how to use it. And there's an evil king, right there."

Ector's nodding, smiling. "Justice."

"Maybe," says Tauren.

"I fancy a ministerial position," says Rion. "In the new order."

"I fancy a sorcerers' pub," says Ector. "All my own. Called 'King Uther's Head'."

"I like it," says Tauren.

Barric thinks he'd like to patronise a pub like that. He says so. Ector flashes him a grin.

~

It's a bit of a lonely life, being a secret sorcerer. What Barric knows of Ector is that -- the kid (about twenty, perhaps) works at the pub, does odd jobs for people, arrived in Lundein a couple of years ago. Claimed to have run away from home aged thirteen and been moving about since then. It's probably the truth.

What Barric knows of other sorcerers is limited. Mainly he knows about his family. They were all mainly a bit inept, to tell the truth. Might not have sorcered at all if they weren't all learning it from the time they were babes.

What Barric knows of ladies has come in brief snatches, here and there, sometimes paid for, sometimes not. He's told people there was a girl who struck his fancy once who died of plague. They probably still wonder why he hasn't married. But not too much, as far as he can tell. There are men who don't marry. They can't all have magic. If they did, Tauren would've probably sniffed them out.

What Barric knows of sorcerers who are also ladies is limited to deceased family members, all with a couple of decades on him in age. So maybe he mulls on the existence of Ector a bit. Tries to piece back that half-awake glimpse of a feminine face. Rounder, maybe. Dark hair perhaps a bit longer, wisping around the cheekbones, eyes a little wider, longer lashes brushing pale cheeks -- this is getting a bit imaginative, Barric thinks. He doesn't really remember that much. Just knows Ector, already roundish face, young-looking, sometimes nervous-looking. Serves drinks, asks after people's farm-strips. Actually a lady. Weird. Barric attempts some mental shrugging. Weird. Oh well. Who'd've thought it?

~

Tauren and Rion wander off into the village, to ask about blacksmiths.

"You need a blacksmith, to turn iron into gold," Tauren says. "On a large scale, at least."

Well, he'd know better than Barric.

Barric suggests to Ector that they stay watching the cattle -- to keep on their hosts' good side.

"Can't hurt," Barric says.

"The boredom might." Ector pulls a face. "Would've preferred the espionage and enquiries."

"This is less dangerous," Barric points out. "Unless you really annoy the cattle." This gets another grin, so he goes on: "Or a wolf tries to eat them."

"We could take on a wolf," says Ector.

"I might prefer not to."

"You don't know any anti-wolf spells?"

"I do, but they'd take half the morning. And involve arcane runes, and stuff."

"Bloody runes. Yeah, I s'pose someone might notice that."

"Yeah." It's a fairly noticeable process. Barric thought about it once or twice for his vegetables. "But. Hey, you must be pretty powerful, aren't you?"

"What? No, I-- Why?"

"Well, with the--" There must be some kind of gesture that can indicate female-to-male transformation. Barric contemplates. He makes one that's slightly curvey.

"Oh," says Ector. "Er, oh, yeah, well. No. Well. I'm only really good at that one thing." A shrug. "It seems to come naturally."

"Oh." Barric thinks for a while. "What's your real name?" he says.

"Ector," says Ector.

~

Tauren starts making trips into the main town, around the castle, while Barric, Ector and Rion spend more quality time with cattle. The suspense is dull. They talk to fill it up.

Barric and Ector chatter a bit about people they both know. Ector tends to know a lot more than Barric does.

"You know, you got a bit of a reputation for being unsociable," Ector says. "You should've made more friends."

"Yeah, I wonder why I didn't." Barric flashes the guy a look that screams, _You gormless idiot_, and then the word _lady_ flashes up in his brain. "I mean--" he tries to say.

"It's more suspicious to be a loner," Ector says. "And what's the point of risking your neck to live among people if you're not going to _live among people_?"

"I'm around people enough. Was. _Am_. But I'm careful."

Rion nods in a way that somehow manages to suggest he agrees with both of them. The cows moo, peaceably. Barric thinks _lady_ a few more times, and thinks he feels a headache coming on.

"How did you and Tauren meet?" Ector asks Rion.

"He's my brother," says Rion.

"Oh," says Ector. "Wow."

"It has been known to happen. Two boys, born of the same parents." Rion leans back against the fence. Ector laughs.

"Much good with magic?" says Barric. Probably some kind of brilliant natural genius. The fucker.

"I'm not a sorcerer," says Rion.

"Oh."

"Yeah, no magic at all." Rion raises his eyebrows and shrugs. "I just don't like persecution."

"_Oh_," says Ector. "That's pretty noble." A thoughtful look. "It would be better if you had a lot of power, though."

"I leave that to my brother." Rion says. "I'm all right with a sword."

Which might, Barric will admit, make him more bloody practical use than either Barric himself or Ector.

~

Tauren gets back from his third excursion with a lot of haste and imprecations, late at night, and without his magic stone.

"Go. We have to go, move, _now_," he says, kicking them into wakefulness.

First though, they wake the family and warn them. It might help, it might not. If they try to run, poor bastards, they'll look suspicious. But then, they _might_ escape. To somewhere.

Rion insists on telling them. "It's only right."

There's hatred in all the family's eyes -- mother, father, even the two sleepy children -- and for a moment, Barric's thinking about fear for his life. But even the mother, who looks fit to spit fire, does nothing. And of course, Barric thinks, this lot'll have been fed notions of evil, fire-throwing, man-killing sorcerers, someone who could make you drop dead with a word and a gesture, a point of his oaken staff. So here this family stand, chocking down on their terror and anger and frustration. _It's your king you'll have to watch out for,_ Barric thinks, as he and his evil, sorcerous friends hurry away. No one follows -- he keeps looking over his shoulder to check.

It's freezing cold, deep black, the middle of the night, as they go. Into the woods to make a rough camp. Wild sounds of animals around them.

"Time for that wolf spell," says Ector.

The others help Barric cast it. Even Rion scratches symbols into the ground. It exhausts Barric, and takes up his mind.

"We'll work something out," Tauren says, dawn coming in, Barric collapsing into sleep. "We'll get back the stone." He's gone by midday, when Barric next wakes.

~

"Your brother's a bit scary," Barric says to Rion, sat on their blankets in the woods, inside their safe, wolf-proof circle. Ector on his-her-his back, staring at the sky. Tauren himself still away, of course.

"Dedicated, though," Barric feels he'd better say.

"Obsessively dedicated," Rion admits. He looks a bit grim.

"I keep thinking about that family," says Ector.

Barric doesn't. Very purposefully.

"And that blacksmith," Ector goes on. "And -- I don't know -- even people who've passed Tauren in the street. People we've passed in the fields. That trader we bought fruit from. Anyone -- how many people--"

"How many people has this regime killed?" Rion says.

"It's a tyranny," Barric says. "It's wrong." Quiet, almost so they can't hear him.

~

They decide to start sleeping in shifts. Barric listens to Rion start snoring, watches Ector's face fade into femininity, as the next night comes in. Ector's features are mostly hidden, pressed into bedroll, obscure in the firelight, hidden beneath still-shortish hair. Barric still watches, wonders a bit, wonders if there's a point in his wondering. So many other things he could be thinking about. Perhaps _that's_ the point.

That afternoon, he'd asked, "I suppose there's not really a need now. For you to. Erm." He gestured. "With no one about, and stuff."

"I dunno," Ector said. And it seemed that was that.

Barric stares upwards, darkish branches against a darker sky. Twinkly stars. The Milky Way like a brush of white powder. Smell of dampness and a bit of rot. Terrible sounds in the air. Barric touches one of the runes that mark their boundary. The thrum of magic is still there.

~

Later, the next morning, Tauren still not back:

"They don't know us," Barric says. "Only Tauren. They might get that family's description of us, maybe, but that's it. That's not much. They might not have the family." He might not want to bet on it.

"Thinking of running?" says Ector.

"Yes. Course I am, aren't you?"

"Back to Lundein?"

"Maybe." Maybe.

"Or to the druids?"

"The druids don't like normal sorcerers," says Rion, stretching and rolling his shoulders, limbering himself awake.

"Yeah. Prejudiced little bunch," says Ector.

"If not as bad as the lot here, though," says Rion.

"Mm."

"Mercia might be a bet." Rion laughs. "You know. Offer information for our safety. Something like: King Uther doesn't like magic. Often kills people. Has lots of armed guards, some of them a bit corrupt though. Wears a crown. He does wear a crown, right?"

"I expect so," says Barric.

"Think they'll buy it?" says Rion.

"Definitely."

Rion's stomach rumbles loudly. They all look at the bag that used to contain their provisions.

"I don't suppose either of you is much good at, uh. Hunting and stuff," Ector says.

"I know a bit about mushrooms," says Barric. Which is not really _hunting_, per se. "I can take out a wild fungus in one strike."

Rion says, "I could probably pick us some rabbits to go with that. Though I can't guarantee to always know which are the poisonous ones."

This time, it's Barric's stomach that rumbles.

"I'll risk it," he says.

~

"You lot look like you've been to war," Tauren says, stepping over the boundary.

"Hunting and gathering," Rion explains.

"Those mushrooms put up a hard fight," says Ector, slightly straining in the light tone.

"Er. There's not much left," Barric apologises.

"Doesn't matter. I already ate," says Tauren. "Robbed a farmer." He may look repentant, maybe just tired.

"The family?" Rion asks, and Tauren shakes his head.

_Fuck_.

"But we're getting the stone. Tomorrow. Girl's bringing it. But still." Tauren nods to Barric, bit of a grim smile on his face. "Make sure you remember how to unsheathe your sword."

Barric practises.

~

Holding a sword to a nice-looking, well-off girl is a new experience. Holding a sword to anyone, of course, but to this fine Lady come in the blacksmith's girl's place, it's not what Barric'd been thinking he was prepared for. He's half-glad, half-not when it's over. She had an air about her. Like she ruled the world. Maybe she didn't think of them as people. Maybe it felt good to think that they _might_ kill her, if need be.

What's important is they get the stone. And, fuck, the girl's plan just about sounds doable. Though only so long as they can trust her.

Barric trusts she's angry. That was patent enough. Anger's not necessarily reliable, though.

Tauren just chews the inside of his mouth, scuffs out another rune in the soil as they pack up.

"Truth is, this plan's probably the best chance we've come by, all along," says Rion.

Barric thinks, once more, of what he's left. Weighing up the value of it in his mind.

"If she'd wanted us dead, this Lady, she could've come with soldiers to kill us where we stood," says Rion. "And everyone knows Uther is a bad king. Anyone can see it. Why send us to our deaths for the sake of a tyrant? And why like this, so elaborate?"

"Her father was a good man," says Tauren, unexpectedly. "Ruled over Cerniw, back in the day."

Ector, armed and cloaked, hefting up a pack, says, "We'll watch each other's backs."

They set off walking.

~

At Gorlois' grave, they pay their respects. Still just before they're expecting anyone to arrive, though they're all on edge.

"Not really a good spot for a-- well," Barric says. "An assassination."

"Any spot'll do," says Ector. Mouth firm.

"Suits our righteous purpose. Being so pretty," says Rion -- and _pretty_ is true. It's a nice day. Green grass, open sky, wide stretches of meadowland, nice-looking trees. Dignified little tombstone. Little wind in their hair. Almost like the world's on their side.

Barric catches the sound of the hooves of horses. Tauren gives a nod, and they go to withdraw to their hiding-places.

"Time to change the world, lads," says Tauren.


End file.
